Just in case you fall into one of these categories, it’s the country club from the movie Caddyshack. Why would I compare an AO to a country club you ask? Well, lemme tell you sumpin. Organ Grinder may very well be the best AO in Hickory. It certainly wasn’t always this way, but it sure is now. The meetup has changed from the bottom of that awful hill in a beat up parking lot across from some shady ass looking bar and just up from a road that leads to Burke County and then abruptly stops. Now we meet at the top of the brand new parking lot at the top of the new, super sweet bike trailhead. Daewoo has been referencing OG as a country club and he’s right. It’s just much nicer than it was and it’s only going to get better w/ the addition of the River Walk that’ll be completed in 2050 or so.

Weather: absolute perfection

Warm Ups: standard stuff

Short mosey to the greenway that leads to the backside of Glen Hilton park. Can we discuss GH real quick? This was the originally proposed site before OG opened up. This place is a perfect AO with one slight issue. There’s no where to park. At all. Other than the whole no parking thing, you have: a large grassy hill, paved track, trails with hills, trails that lead to a lake, some of those sweet permanent grills, and tons of playground obstacles. In fact, if we ever decide to open up an evening AO, this is the place.

We got there before the men from Arrow, so we did some ab exercises to kill some time. Arrow dudes get there, sans Mr. Arrow. Apparently Fuse was brewing up some trouser chili and had to excuse himself before making it to Glen Hilton.

The original plan was to have 2 Q’s. OG had 15 minutes and Arrow had 15. Turns out that the workout that I had for my share took a bit longer than planned so it workout out perfect.

Another quick mosey and we found ourselves at the bottom of a long, slow hill. This was a good spot for a ladder.

Original call was:

Burpees at the bottom

Backwards bear crawl up hill

Burpees at the top

After one round of the backwards bear crawl up, YHC called an audible for walking lunges instead. BBC is a horrible exercise and should only be used for short hills or when everyone is well rested. I wasn’t and I barely made it up that first try. In fact, I wouldn’t be considered fake news if someone spoke up and said that YHC did roughly 70% of a BBC up that hill at best….if you can’t do it, don’t Q it.

This ladder took up all of the allotted time for our lil’ convergence so we said a quick prayer for everyone in attendance as well as for those not in attendance, did the “I’m pounding this out, but you’re trying to shake my hand” thing and went our separate ways.

Legs were shot, so we mostly walked our way back. Call it a ruckless ruck if you need to, because there was some good conversation along the way between YHC and Shark Bait. Dude is a dang kid.

Circled back up for WOD (Philippians 4:1) that struck me as very F3 worthy:

Therefore my dear brothers and sisters, stay true to the lord. I love you and long to see you, dear friends, for you are my joy and crown I receive for my work.